For the love of cycling, please let Cookson be the winner

Even David Millar says it - "@millarmind: Calling all pro-cyclists: BRIAN COOKSON FOR PRESIDENT OF @UCI_cycling. RT if you care. Ignore if you no longer even understand." God knows it's awful late, but spread the word.

William Fotheringham ‏@willfoth 20m
it was 21 v 21 you couldn't make it up. needed a majority. that's 22, therefore not accepted. article 51 will not be changed.

From my understanding of this, the motion to change article 51 has not achieved a majority vote therefore McQuaid doesn't have a nomination so Cookson is the uncontested winner of the election...I think!

I still don't understand how uncle pat was on the ballot after this mornings vote on A51. But at least he is gone now.

because they didn't get a binding vote, 21-21. (who thought 42 was a sensible number!!!!!)

My opinion is this will mean LESS legal ramifications, PMQ lost fair and square. there was no argument about procedure being changed, about amendements to practices to enable him to win. If PMQ had won, the lawyers would have been in this afternoon to argue if he should have been on the ballot, something that would drag on for months if not years and been far worse for cycle sport.

I still don't understand how uncle pat was on the ballot after this mornings vote on A51. But at least he is gone now.

From what I understand, there was a discussion over the interpretation of the specific standing order for the nomination process*, and this never went to a vote on the request of Cookson to go straight to a vote between him and McQuaid.

On the one side - those who didn;t think he was nominated properly, on the basis that his home federation did do it (i.e. neither Ireland nor Switzerland) but on the other side, the opinion was that any federation of which you were a member could do so - and McQuaid is honorary member of a number of different federations - inc Thailand and Morocco.

I'd suggest that the constitution was intended to be taken in the spirit of the first interpretation, and that McQuaid's nomination was not valid, not because of what it says in 51.1, but because of the stipulations around membership of the management committee and the representation of the different continents - there is no point in that including the president (which it does) if they are allowed to flip flop where they represent to where ever will support them - if he was president, would he count towards the European, the Asian or the African quota?

Excellent, today I'll be able to go out and enjoy riding my bicycle. Oh hang on, I did that yesterday, when Bad Pat was apparently my boss and before Good Cookson was my new boss. A bit of perspective please.